


the way to a man's heart

by chaosdunk



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Constipation, Food, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:00:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28975494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaosdunk/pseuds/chaosdunk
Summary: ...is through his stomach.In which Vergil tries to adjust to life in the human world, Dante tries to help, and Nero tries to reach out to his father, with varying degrees of success.
Relationships: Dante & Vergil (Devil May Cry)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 64





	the way to a man's heart

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't exactly the food fic I set out to write, but it's the one I ended up with. Originally I just wanted to write about Vergil at Olive Garden and Dante making him try different kinds of foods and then I somehow wound up with something significantly less funny and more of an exploration of Vergil Coping Poorly with normal life post-DMC5. I hope you enjoy!

The sun hangs low and gold in the sky when Dante and Vergil bang back into the shop, limping and dripping with gore. Exhaustion has settled in bone deep from countless fights and the strain of cutting open the veil between the human and demon worlds, and it’s with considerable effort that they manage to heave themselves over the threshold.

"Ah, fuck," Dante says as he flops on the floor, not even bothering to make it the few extra feet to the couch. He sort of wriggle-writhes over to his desk, too lazy and tired to walk any longer. "Hey. I want pizza."

"You always want pizza, Dante," Vergil says. He stumbles into a corner and collapses, barely propped up by the Yamato. It’s not much, but with his back against the wall and a clear view of the rest of the shop, he feels safer here.

"Yeah, but I haven’t had any in _forever_ ," his brother whines. "And I’m starving. I’m ordering some."

They haven’t even showered yet—they haven’t even told Nero and the girls—they haven’t even back for five minutes—and Dante’s already picking up the phone. He rattles off the order with a practiced air ("No olives, please and thank you!") and collapses back onto the floor. Vergil wants to argue with him, but he knows he has no answer for insistent hunger twisting around his stomach.

Thirty minutes later, Vergil can’t see the delivery person’s expression at Dante’s state from his spot propped against the wall, but he can’t bring himself to care very much the second the smell of food hits his nose. It’s greasy. Too cheesy. The heaviness makes his stomach roil.

It’s the best thing he’s smelled in years.

Wordlessly, he and Dante descend upon the pizza like a pack of starving hyenas. It’s an absolute slaughter. There are no survivors. The taste of pepperoni and sausage is hot and bright against his tongue, blinding after the blandness of unseasoned demon flesh. Bell and banana peppers punch halfheartedly at the back of his sinuses. He rips into the garlic crust, careless of the buttery, oily sheen it leaves on his fingers, and it occurs to him, belatedly, that maybe he should have washed his hands before digging in. But it’s too late. He wouldn’t stop even if he wanted to. The pizza has him now.

Dante cracks open the box of cinnamon sticks with the focus and determination of a bomb defusal squad. It’s a good thing, too—Vergil’s head whips around like a meerkat as the smell assaults his nose. The sticks looks stupid and frivolous but he’ll be damned before he backs down from one of Dante’s challenges. He dips one in icing that edges into the painful side of sweetness, an overindulgence he would have hated at any other time, and Dante laughs as he spills cinnamon dust all over himself.

They gorge until they’re satisfied, lazy and full in the warm setting light, and they sprawl out on the floor and pass out in exhausted, greasy contentment until Lady and Trish come back and trip all over them in the dark and start to yell.

* * *

After everything gets sorted out—the welcome backs, the fuck yous, the suspicion and hostility (this one for Vergil)—life returns to normal for Dante, or whatever counts as normal for him. Bills need to be paid, debts need to be cleared, and there are always, always demons to kill. The Qliphoth weakened the barrier between the human and underworld, and even after severing the connection, there are still ways for the crafty and clever to squeeze their way through.

It doesn’t take long for Dante to settle back into his routine, even after being trapped down in hell for nearly a year. The perks of being the best in the business, perhaps.

He naps with his feet propped lazily up on his desk, a magazine tenting his face. He takes calls as they come and networks with others in the business, casually catching back up to speed after being out of the action for months.

All in all, things have settled back into a simple peace.

Unfortunately, things aren’t as simple for Vergil.

* * *

Before, he'd always had a goal. Something to work towards. A purpose.

He can still remember the taste of that all consuming drive that consumed him in his teens. He greedily drank up every little bit of information he could find about his father like a parched man in a desert; every scrap of knowledge just whetted his appetite for more. He hadn't even originally set out to research the spell sealing the demon world, but Arkham had known just what words to say to entice him, and from then on he couldn't get the thought out of his head. Finally, an answer to his father's legacy. Finally, a way to be safe.

Mundus had twisted him, altering the very essence of his soul, branding him with a new name that bent him to fit it. A torturous existence for the son of a hated traitor. Mundus set him like an attack dog, a low existence, wielding him like a cudgel against enemies real and perceived. If there was one thing he'd always been good at, it was killing. He cannot remember those years clearly, but he remembers enough to know he does not want to. Let those memories stay dead with V’s familiars.

And then afterward, free from that torment but not as free as he'd have liked, he'd scrabbled just to survive, grubbing in the dirt until he'd caught an echo of Yamato's song calling him home.

These lazy, syrupy days—the long, endless hours—idle moments passing like a dream—

What is he supposed to _do_ with himself?

* * *

Vergil stares down at his drink cup as the cafe bustles around him. He had ordered an espresso. What he received is not an espresso.

He’d been expecting a shot, smooth and rich. What the barista handed him was a strange, sour thing. No crema. No life. Burnt and bitter, the taste lingers on the tongue like a bad memory, and he crunches into a biscotti dry to try to wipe it away.

The cafe was nothing like he’d seen in Fortuna. It was loud and hectic, filled with various gaggles of teens who congregated at the counter like honking geese, jostling and jockeying for clout. In some ways, humans and devils truly weren’t so different. Aggressively calming corporate music pipes through the speakers in a halfhearted attempt to cultivate ambience. The end result is something akin to a eight year old’s birthday party being held in a library.

Dante sips at some horrendous whipped cream monstrosity. Vergil overheard his brother customize the order, and in a rare display of human sympathy he pitied the poor barista who was forced to be complicit in Dante’s crimes against coffee.

Dante catches him staring. “Wanna try a sip?”

Vergil simply stares harder. “I can smell it across the table.”

“That’s not a no.”

“Consider this my refusal, then.”

Dante laughs at him. “Coward.”

Vergil, unfortunately, activates like a sleeper agent. This is the magic word. Not please, not thank you, not appeals to human decency—a challenge, bright and ringing, affronting his sensibilities. Intellectually, he knows this is a low and easy blow. Caving to Dante here is only reinforcing that such crude methods work on him. Emotionally, he is incapable of letting this slide.

As Vergil raises the straw to his mouth, he knows, deep in his soul, that this was a fucking mistake.

He takes a sip. An eighteen-wheeler full of vanilla creamer hits him right in the face, laying him out flat. It’s too much. How can Dante possibly stomach this? While he lays in the metaphorical dirt, trying to recover, a ribbon of caramel kicks him while he’s down, for good measure. A crunch of chocolate chip only adds insult to injury, and the taste of whipped cream slides in like a frat boy party crasher to steal his girl.

Knowing that Dante is watching him for any hint of weakness, Vergil carefully schools his expression into something that hopefully does not betray the wild mosh pit of flavors that have just assaulted him. He probably does not succeed.

“It’s awful,” he says, which is just about the biggest understatement in the universe, and Dante laughs at him as he gnaws at his biscotti.

"And here I thought you had a sweet tooth!"

"Yes, when I was _eight_ ," Vergil says dryly. "You cannot possibly tell me you enjoy that."

"Just between you and me?" Dante leans forward. "Not really. I drink it more so I don’t just zone out for days at a time. It gets really boring between jobs when I’ve got nothing to do."

"So you drink _that_?"

"What can I say? It's better than alcohol."

Vergil has approximately half a second to process the implications of that before Dante barrels on. That's the trouble with his brother, he's finding--it's hard to pin Dante down with anything truly serious. Conversations are all delicate dances and deflections.

"Surely you've got some weird indulgences, too?" his brother asks, with a too careful grin.

"I have no such vices."

"Really? Nothing to keep you out of trouble?"

Endless, empty days stretch before him. No ambitions. No goals. "Nothing to get me _in_ trouble, either."

Dante blinks, leans back, chews his plastic straw thoughtfully. "Why don't you come work with me? Nero's in on it—we could officially make this a family thing. Business isn't always booming, but..." he trails off with a shrug. a little half-shoulder jiggle full of a forced casualness that Vergil would have to be blind to not see.

"Perhaps we could work something out," Vergil says cautiously, and it's impossible to miss the look that lights up on Dante's face.

* * *

The killing helps, but it's a band-aid that can't staunch the real wound.

The everyday humdrum of human life—going to the store, reading magazines, saving money, talking to others, every single small and mundane moment—all of it is suffused in a surreal haze.

None of this feels real.

It’s been over two decades since he’s been able to think about anything but the struggle of surviving, and since then the whole world has passed him by. Things were so much simpler in the underworld. He and Dante had settled into an easy rhythm, blades dancing and snaking around each other like they hadn't spent the last twenty years apart. Fitting together again was as easy as breathing. All that mattered was the next foe in front of them and the endless scoring of their competitions. They slept when they wanted, killed when they wanted, fought and argued and made up when they wanted.

The only times Vergil feels real is when he goes out on jobs. The human world’s petty worries mean nothing against the rush of adrenaline as he brings his sword to bear against his foes, putting his life on the line with every fight. The other demons he faces can’t stand up to him, and the assertion of dominance feels right in a way that flaunting money never could. He lives for the bite of the Yamato into demon hide, the thrill of the hunt, the rush of power thrumming under his skin.

The give of flesh under his fangs as he tears into still-squirming meat. Resistance jarring up his arms as he cleaves through bone. The spray of arterial blood, hot and wet and exultant.

Vergil can’t tell if Dante understands. His brother spent the majority of his life amongst humans, stamping down and repressing half of himself. Internalizing human mores. Following silly rules and bizarre laws. He probably doesn’t want to indulge in those urges.

Or maybe he does, and that’s why Dante wastes away alone, locked up in that shop of his.

* * *

He comes back one night, covered in blood that's not his, and he finds Dante waiting for him on the couch like a disappointed mother.

"Rough night?" Dante asks, setting down his magazine.

Vergil just grunts. "You could say that."

Dante cocks his head. "When was the last time you ate something? Not just a snack. _Real_ food."

Vergil actually has to stop and think. "The pizza, that first night we got back."

"That long ago?" Dante whistles. "Damn, no wonder you've been so cranky lately."

Vergil gives him a look. "Dante, we don't need to eat."

"Yeah, but it's _fun_. I _like_ eating."

"It's unnecessary," Vergil says irritably. Dante usually doesn't accost him like this after a job. It makes Vergil feel like he's done something wrong. "Why bother wasting time on something so useless?"

This just earns him an eyeroll. "Jeez, would it kill you to act more human once in a while?"

"Yes, it would," Vergil does not say, and the words taste like acid in his mouth the more he keeps them in. Did Dante truly know what it was like to be hunted down, coddled as he was by the adoptive parent with which he was so quick to replace their mother? Had he ever been surprised in the middle of the night by demons pinning him to the ground because he'd allowed himself the luxury of sleep? What did his brother _really_ know about surviving alone?

But no. These are old thoughts, old grudges. It wouldn't do to voice them, no matter how much he wants to snap and bite.

In a compromise that has Dante leaning forward with interest, what he does say is, "And just what would you propose?" which is how he ends up getting dragged to Restaurant Fredi at two in the morning.

The diner is, expectedly, empty other than the two of them. Dante orders his customary strawberry ice cream, taking up his entire side of the booth in an impressive man-spread, arms spread casually wide across the back of his seat. Vergil is not quite so comfortable. The business owner and the waitress obviously know Dante, evidenced by their easy chatter, which puts Vergil at a disadvantage. Over two decades he was gone, and Dante has lived a whole life without him.

He sourly pokes at his gelato. Despite what he told Dante, he does still enjoy sweet things. He just prefers not to indulge, unlike Dante, whose whole life is some kind of indulgence. Napping. Fighting. Stupid leather coats. Even stupider one-liners. Avoiding his responsibilities to his nephew. Depression. Vergil has never been allowed the luxury of sinking into the morass of his own self-pity; he has spent a lifetime clawing his way forward, inch by agonizing inch, the shattering of his childhood impressing upon him no lesson more important than never letting himself be so vulnerable ever again.

The gelato is pretty good, though.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Dante asks, interrupting his silence.

He scoffs. "Please, your wallet isn't big enough for me."

"Ouch! Got me there."

An awkward silence stretches between them. Dante drums his fingers on the table, watching as a strawberry starts its sad slide down a melting pile of whipped cream.

"I used to come here a lot, years ago. The owner's real nice, even if he pretends not to be. With the weird hours I kept running the shop, it was one of the few places in my budget range still open when I finished a job. I was practically nocturnal back then."

He simply nods, wondering why Dante is telling him all this.

"Can't tell you how many strawberry sundaes I slammed back then. Anything for the stimulation, right? Fighting just stopped doing it for me."

Vergil gives him a long look. "Where are you going with this."

"Nowhere. Not really." A shrug. "Just thinking about old times, I guess." Dante laughs ruefully. "Did you know, I used to carry Rebellion around in a _guitar_ case. God. I really thought I was hot shit."

"You still think you're hot shit, Dante," Vergil points out.

"Yeah, but it's _actually_ true now."

"I wouldn't go _that_ far."

"Oh, don't be like that!"

Vergil merely snakes his spoon out lightning quick, popping a stolen strawberry in his mouth before Dante can react, which is as good of a topic change as any.

* * *

Though Vergil would rather die than admit it, Dante is too smart for his own good. One doesn't live long in his line of business without being observant and clever, and Dante must have read something in Vergil's preferences, because one night Dante twists his arm until Vergil agrees to go out with him to eat.

Vergil regrets it, immediately.

"Dante." He looks over at his brother, who is very clearly not meeting his eyes, and then up at their destination. "What is this."

"What, you lose your eyesight or something? That old age catching up with you? The sign's right there!"

For a brief, fleeting moment, Vergil misses being back in the underworld. He had been the king of hell, once. Only for a month, and it wasn't really _him_ , but he still counted it. A blazing storm of power and wrath, he killed anything he wanted, took anything he wanted, and no demon ever dared to defy his will.

He had been respected. Feared. The highest echelons of hell trembled to hear his name.

These are the thoughts that echo through his head as he looks up at the glowing neon sign that sits above an inviting brick restaurant.

OLIVE GARDEN

"You know, Vergil, when you're here—"

" _—I swear to god—_ "

"—You're _family_."

He is going to kill Dante. He is. Dante's death will be long, and horrible, and the choirs of hell will sing of the suffering of the younger son of Sparda for ages to come. It's this promise that fuels the furnace of his heart and keeps him warm as Dante slings an arm over his shoulder and starts hauling him through the front door.

Things go better than expected, until they don't. Vergil is a plate of carbonara, five bowls of salad, another five bowls of chicken and gnocchi, seven baskets of garlic bread, and three pitchers of berry sangria deep when Dante ambushes him with The Question.

“Are you, like, _doing_ okay?” he asks, not quite looking at him, sounding slightly constipated.

Vergil squints at him, his fork of tiramisu paused halfway to his mouth, and something about the cocktail of cheap fruity alcohol, the soft mood lighting scientifically engineered in a corporate lab to encourage emotional relaxation to maximize profits, and the strange look of genuine concern on Dante’s face, all combine to make Vergil give the question more than three seconds of consideration. Every neuron in his brain is lighting up with a sense of danger and the instinct to deflect, deflect, deflect. But Dante is clearly expecting an answer, a real one—and the fact that Dante hasn't drawn his sword and challenged Vergil for it is unnerving.

Vergil looks around wildly. The establishment is filled with patrons, potential witnesses and collateral damage both. He can't simply stab Dante and bolt, or slip into his devil trigger and level the joint and leave in the chaos—to do so would invite Nero's wrath, and Vergil doesn't want his ass kicked over something as banal and stupid as _property damage_.

“This was a set-up,” he accuses with some difficulty, due to the aforementioned three pitchers of sangria. "You set me up."

"Yup," Dante replies, popping the P with relish. "And we're not leaving until we have a real, honest family conversation." He leans across the table. "Because when we're here..."

" _Would you stop saying that_."

"...We're _family_."

_Fuck._

* * *

"So. _So._ So." Dante shifts with each word, clearly at unease with how to proceed now that he's actually doing this. "How are you doing."

"Like I want to exit this conversation immediately," replies Vergil, immediately.

"Yeah, well, that ain't happening! So the faster you tell me, the faster we can leave." It occurs to Vergil that this wasn't just a trap for him. It was a trap for Dante as well, a way for Dante to ensure that he can't easily back out of this conversation, either. They talk to each other, sure, but they don't _talk_ to each other, in the way that close people often do. It's awkward, and embarrassing, and they'd rather solve their conflicts with swords and action.

"Nothing is wrong," Vergil says.

Dante throws his hands up in the air. "For God's sake. Stop being a prideful bastard for two seconds and tell me what's wrong. I've seen the way you blank out. You come back to the shop covered in blood—" ("So do you!" Vergil interjects. "Demons are messy!") "—looking more alive than you ever have inside of it!"

"You misunderstand. Nothing is wrong. By all rights, I should be happy." He looks at his hands. "But I'm not."

Dante looks at him—really looks at him, in that incisive and insightful way he tries so hard to hide. "Why not?"

"I... don't know." How can he explain the emptiness that yawns before him, the ennui that infests his waking moments? The disconnect and detachment? He isn't broken. He _isn't_ , and he'll kill the person that ever suggested it, but cutting out his nightmares wasn't enough and it never would be—the years had changed him, as surely as they had changed Dante, and it's foolish to think otherwise. "I don't belong here."

This is clearly not the answer Dante was hoping for. "Don't give me that bull. You're human, just like me. The human world _is_ where you belong."

"But it's not where I've spent the last twenty years of my life, Dante. Can you really see me staying here for another twenty? Paying taxes? Buying groceries? Doing..." He flounders, clearly at the limits of his imagination. "...whatever it is humans do?"

"Yes, I can! If I can manage to buy stamps or assemble furniture or whatever, you can, too." A tone that veers too close to pleading enters Dante's voice. "Look, I can help you with this stuff. I know it's hard. God knows it took _me_ way too long to stop buying stupid leather coats and losing myself in fights, but if I can manage, I know you can, too."

Vergil decides not to bring up the fact that Dante has not, in fact, ever stopped buying stupid leather coats. "It's not that simple."

"Then explain it to me."

He looks away.

Dante, who had never spent years in the demon world. Dante, who even now rejected half of his being. Dante, who would ever choose humans. It strikes Vergil that there is a chasm that yawns between them, the distance between their respective experiences seemingly unbridgeable, no matter how much his brother tries to reach out.

Dante clearly mistakes his hesitation for obstinacy. In any other situation, he might have been right. "Oh, so what, you gonna run off again because you can't hack normal life? Toss yourself off another tower? Abandon your son? Abandon—" Dante snaps his jaw shut to stop himself, but Vergil plainly hears what went unsaid:

_"Abandon_ me _?"_

"I don't belong here, Dante, and I never will." Something bubbles up inside him, brought about by a simply obscene amount of sangria and emotional turmoil, an unbearable truth that rises like bile in his gorge that in turn only fuels his disgust at such weakness. The words spill out of him, jagged edges tearing at him as surely as they tear at Dante, but it's impossible to keep them inside. "You should have just left me in the underworld."

Dante's eyes burn with a light Vergil's only ever seen as V, when he laid the bait and revealed his name to hire Dante's services. White-hot and livid, the edge of Dante's voice takes on the two-toned echo of his devil trigger as he growls, "Don't you ever say that to me again."

"You started this, Dante. I simply answered. What is it you want from me?"

"I want you to be happy for once in your life," Dante snaps. "Is that so wrong?"

And that's where the manager swoops in. With an edge to his voice he asks them how they're doing, and he's just so sorry, but it’s closing time and they really need everyone to leave, even though it’s only eight o’clock and not a single other group is being hurried out the door. Vergil briefly wonders just how much this human saw, if he heard the flanged tones of their demonic voices, and if Vergil needs to eliminate him, Nero's wrath be damned, but as they're hurried out the door by a stressed-looking waiter, another explanation presents itself. He catches the manager pointing harriedly at the collection of plates on their table, and Vergil reflects that perhaps unlimited soup and salad are not so unlimited after all.

* * *

In a move that surprises no one, they don't talk about it.

The days pass in a tension so thick it could be cut with a knife; Dante resolutely avoids bringing up the topic again, and Vergil is more than happy to let him. What more is there to say? What more _can_ Vergil say?

This lasts until Nero calls.

Vergil doesn’t know exactly what was said; he enters the shop near the tail end of the conversation, walking in on Dante holding the receiver about a foot from his ear while Nero squawks indignantly. Even through the distance and tinny reception Vergil can hear some of Nero's tirade:

"I can't fucking believe this! _Olive Garden?_ If you wanted Italian food so bad, why not—oh I don't know—call me up and ask me and Kyrie!"

Vergil takes a schadenfreudistic pleasure at Dante being on the receiving end of Nero's anger for once. Dante starts to plead. "Kid, come on—"

"It’s like you two are deliberately ignoring us. Kyrie hasn't seen you since everything with the Order. I haven't even gotten to introduce her to- to Vergil!"

"Are you _sure_ that’s a good idea?" Dante asks skeptically. Vergil can't even bring himself to take offense.

"Don't change the subject! If you both aren't here Friday night, I'm gonna come over there and _get_ you myself!"

The sudden silence of the Nero hanging up rings through the room.

Dante and Vergil stare at each other. Neither of them particularly want to be subjected to more Family Time, but neither do either of them want to give Nero an excuse to come kick their asses again. They are going to have to endure another sit-down dinner, whether they like it or not.

Dante shrugs, trying for casual and missing wide. “Well, you heard the man. Better clear your schedule for this weekend.”

* * *

The night starts off as expected, which is to say it's awkward as shit.

Vergil doesn't care much for small talk and pleasantries, and Dante would rather not speak to his nephew for five years than be emotionally available, but to their credit, Nero and Kyrie do their best to make them feel welcome, with varying degrees of success. Nero lingers self-consciously at the edges of conversations, still unsure about his place in his new-found family, but he still tries. Nico is, as always, herself: irrepressible and incorrigible, a conversational whirlpool that sucks in everyone in her vicinity.

Kyrie is a hostess born, effortlessly chattering away in an attempt to make them feel at home. He can smell the undercurrent of nervous fear on her, but she never lets it show on her face or in her demeanor, and despite everything he finds himself respecting her staunch refusal to let him know how much he scares her. A rabbit standing up to a wolf.

Vergil almost buys it, before he sees the way she glances towards the garage.

It’s a very lovely dinner. Nero has obviously put effort in trying to impress, despite his meager means. Homemade lasagna, courtesy of Kyrie. Fresh garlic bread from the local surviving bakery. Cheap wine, but clearly chosen with a care for pairing.

He's not particularly hungry—the trip to the accursed garden of olives was more than enough food to last him an age—but others would take notice if he didn't eat at all. Despite his reservations and small appetite, he's forced to admit that Kyrie can cook. They must have sprung extra for the ground beef, since he can taste the freshness. It tugs at his memory of the last time he was in Fortuna, one of the few times he felt a modicum of peace. He'd only spent a few months there, but his brief stay had left an impression on him.

The promise of good food. The creamy coolness of gelato to take the edge off a hot summer night. The taste of crema lingering on his tongue. The embrace of someone that he didn't love, not exactly, but only because he never gave himself the chance to develop it further.

Vergil listlessly picks at his food. The lack of stress is, ironically, hilariously, upsettingly, the source of his stress. He keeps waiting for a threat that never comes. All his senses are tuned to finding it, all the time, and there's no relief from the energy building inside him. It'd almost be better if he _was_ attacked. The peace, the camaraderie, the temptation to relax, drop your guard, it's fine, don't worry, no one will hurt you here—

He can't do it.

The feeling smothers him as dinner clatters on around him, so hot and cloying he can’t breathe. He doesn’t belong here and he never will. What is he doing, playing house like he’s a real person? Like he has any right to be here?

It's too much. As politely as he can possibly manage, he excuses himself and leaves the room amidst Nico and Dante's conversation about the hell he's put his poor guns through and Nero and Kyrie making eyes at each other across the table, escaping to the cool night air outside.

It's quieter out here. Easier to think.

So, of course it's not long before someone comes along and fucks it all up.

"You lasted a lot longer in there than I thought you would," Nero says behind him.

As far as interruptions go, Nero isn't the worst. Vergil has spent painfully less time around him than he'd like, and even that is filtered through the jumbled haze of two sets of memories. An arrogant, weak fledgling, come to challenge his power. A sensitive young man, still coming into his own. V may not have thought much of Nero at first, but that didn't last long.

"Taking bets?" Vergil asks dryly.

"Nah. I'd never hear the end of it from Kyrie." Nero flops onto the bench next to Vergil; he'd rankle at the presumption—only Dante has ever dared to be so bold—but this _is_ Nero's home.

"You and Dante have been fighting, huh." A statement, not a question.

"You'll have to be more specific. When are we _not_ fighting?"

Nero huffs a laugh. "I've got eyes, you know. I'm talking about whatever it is you're fighting about _now._ "

Vergil suppresses a sigh. "It doesn't matter."

A bullish look crosses Nero's face. "Yes, it does. I don’t want to have to break you two up again." What goes unsaid is: _you don’t want_ me _to have to break you two up again._

"Don't worry. We haven't come to blows over it. There's no need to involve yourself."

"Dude, I thought Nico was going to explode from the tension. _Something's_ gotta change." Nero shifts minisculely. Leans forward. His voice drops into something quieter, more hesitant, and Vergil knows what he's going to ask before he even says it.

"Is this about... where you've been all this time?"

Vergil closes his eyes.

"Dante mentioned something on the phone about you acting weird, and I just put two and two together. It doesn't take a genius to figure out you were in a real bad place earlier."

Crumbling flesh. Wasting away. Tormented by nightmares. He doesn't want to remember this. Why does Nero have to talk about this?

"I had a really rough time after." Nero swallows. "After my arm.”

There it is.

“Couldn't sleep for a week, barely ate." Nero looks at him sidelong; Vergil cannot even begin to guess at why he's recounting this to the person responsible. "I kept pushing Kyrie away. Nico practically had to wrestle me down to make me sit so she could fit the breakers. I just felt so _useless._ Powerless." He sucks in a breath, and Vergil doesn't miss the way he cradles his right arm. "I didn't want anyone to know how screwed up I really was, but when I finally talked about it with Kyrie, it was like a load off my mind. It didn't fix everything, but it helped. Sometimes you just have to let it all out.

"It's okay to ask for help, you know," Nero says. "I'm sure Dante would understand more than you think, if you gave him the chance."

"Dante is a fool," Vergil replies, which is not the ringing condemnation he wants it to be.

Nero huffs a laugh, despite himself. "Look, all I'm saying is I get it. It's hard. Feeling weak, feeling like you can't ask for help, looking for relief in all the shittiest, worst places. Before you say anything or shoot me down, I'm not saying i've had it as bad as you or whatever, but I understand. Sometimes you do fucked up things when you're hurting."

Something close to anger kindles unexpectedly in his chest. How dare Nero show him such kindness, after all Vergil's done? "Don't tell me you forgive me for taking your arm."

The face Nero makes could have curdled milk. "No, _idiot_. I don't know you well enough to forgive you. I don't even know if you're sorry. But I want the chance to know. I want to get to know you and help you, because that's what families do!"

Vergil's fingers clench at the railing, hard enough the wood splinters.

It's been a long time since someone has reached out to him. No, that's not right—Dante tried. That's what the food was about, and that disastrous dinner. It was his way of letting Vergil know he was around, even when Vergil pushed him away; they were both just too reticent to be completely open with one another. Too much history between them.

But Nero doesn't have that baggage weighing down on him. He was the one who showed them another way, one that didn't end in blood and death. One where he and Dante could finally, finally start to heal.

He forces himself to let go, to take a moment and just _breathe._

"I... see."

Nero frowns at the answer, clearly expecting a different reply. Something aggressive, dismissive.

Not too long ago, Vergil would have indulged him. But that was before he forcibly separated his human side from his demon—before a part of him, discarded and despised, learned the value of everything he'd once deemed weak.

"I can't promise you anything, Nero," he says, haltingly. "It's been a long time since I've been anything but a monster. You're not likely to find what you're looking for, in me. But I can try."

It's the most honesty he can bear.

"That's all I'm asking."

For a horrifying moment Vergil is afraid Nero is going to hug him. There is another horrifying moment he is afraid Nero will not. Nero does neither, to his immense relief; instead, he holds his hand out expectantly, and Vergil stares blankly for a moment until it finally clicks. A handshake.

The meaning is not lost on him.

Warm, calloused fingers stained with the smell of engine grease and propellant. A firm grip, steady with assurance. Hands just as comfortable ripping a demon apart as they are fixing cars, or comforting a child.

Vergil can't bring himself to speak, then, but he hopes Nero reads his nod as the thanks that it is.

"Let's head inside," Nero says, his voice rough. "The others are gonna be wondering where we are, and Kyrie's not gonna let you leave until you try some of her dessert."

He has no claim to this son of his. He cannot take responsibility for the way the young man before him turned out. He does not have the right. Regardless, the ember of something like pride flickers within him, and all it would take is something a little more for it to catch fire.

Nero is, and always will be, the best of them.

Vergil heads back inside into the waiting light.

**Author's Note:**

> AAAAAA I JUST WANTED TO WRITE ABOUT BREAD STICKS


End file.
